


The Liminal Space

by CharbroilLaFlamme



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Anger, Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Coping, Denial, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hell, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Limbo, Purgatory, References to Addiction, References to Canon, References to hell, Revenge, Spoilers, Writer’s interpretation, not my characters, references to blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 16:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14289252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharbroilLaFlamme/pseuds/CharbroilLaFlamme
Summary: Limbo. Hell. Purgatory. All mean the same to someone who has seen it all.Perhaps, afterlives are subjective.





	The Liminal Space

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Team Fortress: The Naked and The Dead](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/369834) by Jay Pinkerton & Erik Wolpaw. 



> So I wanted to show my interpretation of the TF’s second-to-last comic’s ending. I referenced the comic’s script and put my spin on the epilogue events at the end.
> 
> Warnings:  
> *Do not read if you have not read the comics and do not wish to be spoiled!  
> *This is an interpretation!  
> *All of the character dialogue comes from the Epilogue of the comic, the comic is owned by the fantastic writers. I do not own any of the sources referenced!

Whenever she shut her eyes, there was darkness.

Whenever she died, she saw more than that, something far, far away. Removed from herself. But still within herself.

Memories.  
Miss Pauling.  
Her rejects of employees.  
Her one measly hour of solitude.

Whenever she died, she could think clearly in a reality all her own.

Where she could quietly smoke and read _AdminWeekly_ magazines. Gaze into her own eyes bitterly while the world outside was still going as it did. Only she was dead. But she also wasn’t.

She was ready to die. And yet she wasn’t.

To herself, it was all the business of a thinker, a philosopher—to others, it was left to the doctors, the engineers, the unknown mourners who waited with bated breath for her to awaken from her slumber. To breathe.  
To rise from the depths of a purgatorial Hell. Her own brand of Limbo.

She was unafraid.  
_Why be afraid if you’re already dead?_

She gazed at the end of her cigarette, it was drawing to its end with golden flecks of fire.  
She simply lit another. Watching the fire scorch the tip. Destruction beginning anew. She looked into the monitors at herself. Hatefully.

 _What utter, poetic tripe._  
_What nonsense._

Who would spend their lives knowing only one end rested for them?

Who wouldn’t look for a cure for death?  
It was only human nature, after all.  
Man will build machines to drag themselves from the precipice.  
Man will evoke Lazarus where _Lazarus has no business being_.

Perhaps these were pointless observations, after all, she made another spark life among the wake of death.

In a body that had far exceeded its warranty.

She preferred to see nothing after the thoughts she’d poured into this silence to fill it.  
However, the silence was being filled with blood—blood that she had drawn in her desire for revenge. A debt.

But even with that glass of unpaid debt overflowing, she needed more. She needed it.  
She craved it.  
She craved life.  
She obscenely desired death.  
But she just as well sneered at death—even while death held a gun to her head.  
He had no power over her.  
Yet he held all of the power over her.

Her dear sweet idiotic assistant would never understand anything. Not at the level that she did. Nobody could. She was loyal, but so foolishly optimistic.

Her long-time helper had no idea—but he’d a clue. A clever man who didn’t deserve the burden her selfish quest for revenge had set on his shoulders.  
Refreshingly realistic, but was far wiser than she gave him credit for.

Neither of them knew hate as intimately as she did. Nor vengeance. Nor addiction. The intensity of her rage, barely held in by the fibres of her being.

Light leaked into her eyes as she was sucked back from the grasp of mortality.

She was pulled back to the body that lie dead, then alive. Breathing.  
But unfeeling. The nerves in her over-encumbered body had rotted away. Leaving behind something dead.  
The stiffness trickled away, rigor mortis that held her joints stony each time she had passed.

Death was an artist.  
Wishing to make its latest, most stubborn, conquest into a statue.

 

* * *

 

Her soul returned to her.

“ _How long?_ ” She couldn’t recognise her own voice. As it rattled on the shock. Her breaths pushing the limits of her chest painfully.

“‘Bout four hours this time.” He said, rather dryly. He had been sticking by her side. All this time.  
He was indeed most loyal— _to a fault_.

He cleared his throat, he hesitated. But he then finally continued, matter-of-factly. “Talked to Pauling. The New Zealand cache is gone.”

Helen ripped her back from the chair she was sitting on. “How much do we have left?” She quavered urgently.  
“Uh... well,” He opened a small box, then showed her the vial—a tiny golden vial of second chances. The very last chance she had. “ _This._ ” He held it in his thumb and pointer carefully. Apprehensively, even.  
“This here’s the _last bit of Australium_ on _earth_ , ma’am.” He said. Hoping to ease her. Hoping to get her to understand.

She stared blankly at the vial, then her look became defiant. “ _No._ No, that’s _unacceptable_.” She stood, pulling her raggedy gown sleeve back up over her shoulder, “We’ll simply have to find _more_.”

Her helper gave a slightly exaggerated sigh, obviously frustrated. “ _Ma’am_ , there _is_ no more.” He had to be her voice of reason, as hard as it was.

“There is _always_ more, mister Conagher,” she found herself gazing out at the warmly-lit sand dunes from the window. “We’ll just have to _find_ it.” She was certain.

Conagher took in a long breath, “ _I don’t think you’re hearin’ me_ , ma’am,” he stressed, “Not this time,” there was a touch of apology among an authoritative hardness, “It’s _gone_.”

She took a hand from the window, gouging it with her nails, “Shut—“ Her fingers formed a bony, sharp fist, “ _Up!_ ” Her raspy voice boomed through the office.

Conagher himself took a startled step back.

The window crackled, tinkling glass dropped from the pane, sparkling under the blue-ish overhead lights.  
Among the slight spot of blood and the crack she left, she saw her reflection.

Gaunt.  
Begging for death.

She rubbed her hurt fist.

Conagher watched her rage dissolve, and her advancing to the next stage of mourning— _acceptance_.

“Mister Conagher...” she wavered solemnly, “Would you escort me to my private quarters, please?”

 

* * *

 

Dell never considered himself very good with coping—even worse at helping others out with coping.

He had poured himself a mug of coffee, steeling himself for his next move. Dreading it.

She was rifling through her closet.

Dell sucked in air. “ _Ma’am_ ,” he started, “I...” he exhaled, “I know this ain’t easy.” He felt himself getting a little emotional, despite himself, “But with the Mark Five, _this_ much could still getcha five,” he calculated a moment, “ _Six_ months of life.”

Helen replied coldly, “It’s not _just_ for me.” She was turned away from him.

Dell sighed, “ _Right_. That old debt you’ve been settlin’.” He threw a side-eye at Helen, slightly accusatory, “You think maybe it’s time you _told me_ about that?” He said, his coffee steamed up his goggles as he looked at his reflection. “My family’s been working for you for...” he tried to figure himself out, “Well, a _long damn time_ ,” he wondered to himself. “You _never_ told me. An’ I _never_ asked.”

He let a hint of bitterness seep into his voice, “I am sorry that whatever you were tryin’ to accomplish here, you didn’t get to.” He had to inject a scathing note into his inflection, trying to hammer his point home. “I _truly_ am. But ma’am,” he breathed. “It is _over_.”

To his surprise, Helen conceded defeat, “No. You’re _right_.”

She fished a corseted gown out of the depths of her wardrobe. “I’ve tried to keep this going as long as I could.” She admitted, gazing at the velvet fabric folds—a reserved sense of regret cast a shadow over her face, “I... I even thought I was _done_ once.” Her voice strained with emotion.

But it was difficult to know which emotion it was.

She picked up the golden vial in her delicate fingers, twirling it gently between them, watching the light within undulate dangerously. “I still _crave_ it. As much as I did when I was a little girl.” The vortex of light beckoned her.

She grit her teeth at the crumbling memory. She clutched the vial tightly in her fist.

“I don’t think I’ll _ever_ stop wanting it.” She whispered, “It’s become... _everything_.” She measured the gown at her arms’ length. “But you’re right,” she said, “It’s _over_.”

Dell exhaled, perhaps she was finally coming to terms. Finally letting it rest.

He took a sip of his coffee relievedly, then turned around to look at her.

“And if I’m going to call an end to all of it... _well_...”  
She released a tiny, brittle chuckle.

Dell’s fingers faltered and the mug fell out of his hand. His mouth hung open.  
The glass shattered and scattered at his feet.

“ _Why not look my best?_ ”

His hands now free, he tangled one in his short hair. His voice came out shaky and partially squeaky. “You used _all_ of it?” He stood stock still where he was in the fresh puddle of ceramic shards and coffee, “ _Ma’am!_ ” He blurted, fully panicked. “You just cut yourself down from _six months_ to an _hour_!” He blanched in horror, “If you’re _lucky_!”

She was tall, thin, her glare shimmered with venom and gold. Her body was fit and her face new, young—her sneer pure poison.

“ _More_ than enough time. Let’s _end_ this.” Her eyes sparked and glinted ever brighter, “Once and for all.”


End file.
